Dean Could be Changing the Endeavour’s Landing Plans
“It’s really important that we keep our options open as long as it’s practical,” said Matt Abbott, NASA’s lead shuttle flight director, in an afternoon briefing. “We’ve been watching this storm kind of brewing for a couple of days and everyone has been aware that it’s developing … we need to be prepared to respond.” (Yahoo News, Friday, August. 17, 2007).
With a tentative landing planned for Wednesday of August 22, 2007, Hurricane Dean may have some other plans for the shuttle Endeavour from its 14-day construction mission —such as landing on Tuesday instead. Scheduled to land Wednesday at 12:52 p.m. EDT, two landing opportunities are available on Tuesday in case plans need to be changed due to the storm. The first Tuesday opportunity to land at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center will be at 12:30 p.m, with the second one opening 30 minutes later. And with the storm developing to the extent it is, this could very much be a reality. IF Tuesday is slated as the return day, the shuttle will need to undock from the ISS on Sunday late evening.
Late Friday the hurricane had intensified enough to be labeled as a category four, with winds running about 135 miles per hour. Presently the storm is in the Caribbean/Jamaica location, but NASA is concerned that it could move toward the Texas coast where the shuttle is planning on landing at the Johnson Space Center.
At 6:45 pm on Friday, the mission managers were planning on one of two things—to land early or extend its flight at the International Space Station. A lot depends on whether or not the storm will continue to the Gulf of Mexico or veer toward Texas. It has been a tough week for the controllers at NASA, with the tear on the Endeavour taking up most of the time to decide whether to fix it or not, and now whether or not to land and when.
Another possibility that may have some bearing on the re-entry of the Endeavour is whether or not there will be an evacuation of Houston and Mission Control. The last time NASA closed its ISS Mission Control was in September of 2005, during Hurricane Rita. When this occurred, primary control of the ISS was transferred to Russia’s Federal Space Agency, with the U.S. flight controllers outside of Houston as backup. Of course, NASA’s first objective is to finish the mission through Houston and having the Endeavour back home, safe and sound.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2007 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Mission Objectives, Space Agency News, Technical Concerns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
